Experts say it take 21 days to change a habit. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but I have an awful habit I need to break. Most people don’t know this, but I LOVE television. I can watch hours and hours of TV. I watch reality shows, sitcoms, talk shows, late night shows, comedy specials, movies on tv, reruns of classic tv…you get the picture. The problem is I often come home from work and immediately start watching TV. In fact, the only reason I’m not watching TV right now is Hess (my husband) has demanded the TV.
I realize coming home and sitting in front of the TV is part of a bad routine. On weekends I don’t do this and when I’m somewhere without a TV I don’t really notice it’s missing. In fact, in September 2008 when the electric at our house was knocked out by hurricane Ike for seven days I didn’t even miss the TV.
Ultimately there are only about five shows I really like to see so I’ve decided to try to break this habit once and for all. I’m going to go 21 days with only one hour of TV a day (try not to fall out of your chair Hess). I’m not cutting out all of my TV time because ultimately I want to learn to manage my time with the TV more effectively. I’ll track my progress here so you can follow along. Wish me luck!
» March 4th, 2010 | Side Notes
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Good luck! I LOVE t.v. too!
I so wish you good luck! I also watch an obscene amount of TV and hardly ever miss it when the talk box is turned off. When I was small, grade/middle school age, my parent’s rule was one hour of TV – per WEEK! While I don’t recommend this tactic, I distinctly remember scouring the TV listings for the upcoming week deciding what show (or shows if I was lucky) merited my attention. Your experiment will most certainly help you to manage your time more effectively and I’m also curious to hear what other things you discover along the way.
Thanks Suzanne! I didn’t really watch a lot of TV as a kid. In high school I watched a fair amount, but it didn’t change my productivity. In college I almost never watched TV so this whole TV issue is a recent development for me. I think it relates to the DVR and I tried to cancel my DVR, but they lowered my cable so much it was cheaper to have the DVR then to go to basic cable. I think it’s ridiculous for me to think I’ll never watch TV again, so I hope this lends some new insight. I think it’s too easy to rely on the TV to kill time rather then doing something productive or enriching.
Thanks!
I would like to add a little more to my previous comment. Growing up poor in a small town there was little to do for entertainment but watch tv. Most people watch t.v. daily and even though we call them by a different name computers, and smart phones are just the same as t.v. We can easily waste much of the day looking at things on the internet, texting our social media sites etc.. So really what makes the difference?
Yep, that’s very true. In the larger picture there really isn’t a difference. I tend to be able to manage my time on these devices much better then with the TV.